University officials will select between Robert Entman, a professor of communications at North Carolina State University, and media personality Marvin Kalb in their search for School of Media and Public Affairs director, according to a source with knowledge of the search.
The author of several books on mass media, Entman referred all comments on his candidacy to interim director Steven Livingston.
Livingston would not say whether the school was considering the NC State professor and said the search is a “continuing process.”
“A selection process at this level has multiple opinions,” Livingston said. “One opinion doesn’t carry the day.”
Several SMPA professors refused to comment on the faculty’s preference between Entman, who has spent his time in academia, and Kalb, a national media personality who is a fellow and lecturer at Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.
The six-member search committee made up of three SMPA faculty members, representatives from the Office of the Vice President of Academic Affairs and an outside advisory board narrowed the field of applicants to three top candidates after a seven-month search that began last fall.
A former finalist for the position and professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Ken Goldstein, withdrew himself from the field, leaving Entman and Kalb.
“I took myself out of the selection process because of a family health issue,” he said. Goldstein added that he would have enjoyed working at GW, referring to the SMPA as a “terrific program and a jewel for the University.”
Donald Lehman, vice president of Academic Affairs, will make the final decision on SMPA’s new head with William Frawley, dean of the Columbian College. Frawley would not comment on the University’s expectations for the new director or when the final selection would be made.
Lehman is out of the country with President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, who will also weigh in on the decision. University officials said they expect the new director to be in place by July 1.
